Absentee Ballots

Tomorrow at 5 p.m. is the deadline for absentee ballots for Tuesday's election at the County Board of Elections in West Chester. This does not mean postmarked by 5 p.m. It does not mean, "Gee, I got tied up in traffic and sorry I'm late. " Nor does it mean registering for an absentee ballot and then turning it in at your polling place. "It has to physically be here by 5 p.m. - no exceptions," said Linda Cummings, director of Chester County Voters Services. Cummings said that Tuesday was the last day a voter could apply for an absentee ballot, and that more than 9,000 county voters have applied.

In a close election, every vote counts. The problem is, sometimes the officials do not count every vote. Consider some of the voters in the First Ward in Burlington City who cast absentee ballots in the 1991 general election in Burlington County. Bertha Gray handed her ballot to an acquaintance to mail. Lillian Ware's daughter told her mother she would post her ballot. Nancy Tiesi asked a friend to mail her ballot. Angelina Frappolli, who cannot see well, requested help in filling out her ballot before mailing it. Not one of those counted.

Philadelphia's absentee ballots will be counted after all - but not till tomorrow. Lawyers for the Republican Party and city officials agreed yesterday to open and count some 12,000 absentee votes, ending a dispute that reached federal court but lost steam as it became clear that the ballots would not change the outcomes of any races. The agreement was signed by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. almost 24 hours after Philadelphia GOP leader Michael Meehan sued, contending that city officials had wrongly failed to provide the party with an advance copy of approved absentee voters.

THE DEADLINE to apply for absentee ballots in Pennsylvania has been extended until 5 p.m. Thursday due to Hurricane Sandy. The deadline to turn the ballots in remains Friday at 5 p.m. Philadelphia voters can obtain absentee ballots in Room 142 of City Hall, and can call the city elections office with any questions at 215-686-3469. Voters from outside the city should contact their county board of elections or go to votespa.com for more information. For information on where to vote in person on Nov. 6, go to: guide.seventy.org.

State Rep. Kenyatta Johnson has apparently won the Democratic nomination to replace Anna C. Verna as City Councilman from the Second District, representing most of South and Southwest Philadelphia. Johnson held a slim but solid 46-vote lead Monday over his nearest rival, Barbara Capozzi, as city election officials completed counting the absentee and provisional ballots cast in the Second District in last week's primary election. Absentee ballots for the rest of the city are expected to be counted Tuesday, possibly resolving the other too-close-to-call primary race – the contest between Karen Brown and John Featherman for the Republican mayoral nomination.

Civics lessons like these, we'd rather not have. But since the dispute over absentee balloting for Philadelphia's Second District state Senate seat is raging, at least it's exposed a piece of the city's election apparatus that is ripe for abuse. Question is, what, if anything, can be done? In the tight Senate race, absentee ballots boosted the number of votes for Democrat William Stinson over Republican Bruce Marks. The dispute is whether the Stinson forces rounded up absentee ballots from voters who were ineligible to use them since they were able to get to the polls.

Today is Election Day, as was yesterday and the day before. Many Americans will vote well before Tuesday, and while the convenience of choosing your day to vote is appealing, convenience should not be the only rule by which we run our elections. In 2004, nearly 25 percent of Americans voted before Election Day, almost 15 percent by absentee ballot and an additional 8 percent at early voting polling places. In 1980, absentee ballots were cast by only 5 percent of voters, and early voting at polling places was nonexistent.

More than 250,000 New Jerseyans already have decided to vote early this year using "no excuse" absentee ballots. Voters can still apply in person until 3 p.m. Monday. In the past, voters had to give a reason, such as travel or illness, to vote via absentee ballot. Since 2005 in New Jersey, they no longer do. People "like the fact they can vote after work," Gloucester County Clerk James Hogan said. "They like voting on Saturdays" at the mall. Voters can get absentee-ballot applications at county stores in Camden and Gloucester Counties this weekend or from any county clerk's office on weekdays.

They are thousands of miles from their native South Africa. But they will be able to share in the historic election by casting a ballot here in Philadelphia. For the first time, black and mixed-race South Africans will be permitted to vote. On April 26, adults who can prove they were born in South Africa can vote at polling places across the world, said Wesley Johanneson, a spokesman for the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. South Africans will vote via write-in ballot for two elections.

A Superior Court judge's ruling that invalidated absentee ballots filed in Eastampton Township's June primary will not affect the county absentee-voting process, the Burlington County clerk said yesterday. "Nothing will change," said Edward Kelly, who in 1975 chose and implemented the computerized punch-card system after studying voting procedures in three other counties. "I don't think it will change the system whatsoever. " Superior Court Judge Martin L. Haines ruled Monday that 18 absentee ballots filed in the election were invalid, in part because the process under which they were filed had never been formally approved by the county Board of Freeholders.

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of South Jersey Democrats' votes in the most hotly contested congressional district in the region could be invalidated after Republicans challenged a swath of mail-in ballots. In a filing Friday, the Burlington County Republican committee challenged the ballots because the Democratic state committee left out required information when sending mail ballot applications to their supporters in a U.S. House race between the GOP's Tom MacArthur and Democrat Aimee Belgard.

Eliminate the School Reform Commission? Not so fast, says its chairman, Bill Green. Responding to a City Council vote Thursday to place on the November ballot a nonbinding question asking Philadelphia voters whether they want schools returned to local control, Green was emphatic: The SRC isn't going away yet, and he's not threatened by Council's move. "I view it as symbolic," Green said of the referendum. "There's no substance there. " The SRC was created in 2001 by an act of the legislature, and the only way for it to go away is to vote itself out of existence.

YOU KNOW that nonbinding ballot referendum City Council approved Thursday to ask voters if the School Reform Commission should be abolished? Don't count on seeing it on the Nov. 4 general-election ballot. The deadline to get the measure, sponsored by City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, placed on the ballot passed on Monday. The City Commission, which runs elections in the city, yesterday mailed out absentee ballots, military ballots and ballots for civilians overseas. The question is not on those ballots.

They've got North Sea oil. They've got silky Scotch. Now, many are demanding free-e-e-e-dom ! Ken Kirkwood, a retired civil engineer who has lived in Haddonfield since 1976, is unequivocal: If he lived in his native Scotland he would vote a resounding "yes" to disaffiliate from the United Kingdom in Thursday's too-close-to-call referendum. "The battle for independence has been going on for 700 years. It's not new," Kirkwood said. "They should go for it. " In local pubs such as Cavanaugh's in Philadelphia, and King's Corner, in Jenkintown, where Scots congregate to watch soccer matches, and among the 450 members of the St. Andrew's Society of Philadelphia - which was founded in 1747 to aid indigent Scottish immigrants and today gives out college scholarships - the topic of Scottish separatism is hotter than a haggis out of the oven.

THE GOOD NEWS: Voters will not - repeat, not - be required to show ID in the May 21 primary. The two sides in the long-running suit over Pennsylvania's voter-ID law have agreed that voter ID will not be enforced during in the primary. The bad news: Unfortunately, that does not mean an end to this case, under legal challenge since the Legislature passed the voter-ID law last spring. It remains under review in Commonwealth Court. A full hearing on the merits won't be until July 15 and any decision, pro or con, will likely be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The rarest of Philadelphia coalitions, a progressive, bipartisan pair who promised to take politics out of the city election machinery and bring transparency and efficiency to the City Commissioners' Office, is having a bad breakup. Its standard-bearer was Stephanie Singer, 48, a mathematician who defeated the city's longtime elections boss, Marge Tartaglione, in the 2011 Democratic primary. Singer moved into Tartaglione's City Hall office in January as chair of the City Commissioners, the agency that runs Philadelphia elections.

About 27,100 people were required to vote by provisional ballot when they showed up at Philadelphia polling places last week - about double the number who were forced to use provisional ballots in the 2008 presidential election. The figures reinforce complaints from the watchdog group Committee of Seventy about the relatively large numbers of would-be voters whose names were not listed in division poll books when they arrived at the polling stations. In those situations, voters are not allowed access to the city's electronic voting machines.

Democratic challenger Sheamus Bonner on Thursday conceded the 163d District state House race to incumbent Nicholas A. Micozzie, a Republican who has represented the Delaware County district for 34 years. "We started this process to make sure that every voice in this district was heard," Bonner said in a statement. "After the first day of counting provisional ballots, we determined that there were simply not enough remaining votes to close the gap. " In an interview, Bonner, a former Army paratrooper and corrections officer, said he had told Micozzie that he would work with him. "I will continue to fight for the middle class and unions and the people of the 163d," Bonner said.

TUESDAY'S election results give us - and the rest of America - plenty to chew on, from Bill O'Reilly's lament that the "white establishment is now the minority," to the significance of the Latino vote, to the long lines and continued problems at polls across the country, including in Philadelphia. Voting problems - many of which were and are fixable - should be at the top of the list. Especially here in Pennsylvania. A Commonwealth Court ruling in early October blocked implementation of a controversial voter-ID law for the election.